Firecracker

All this
For you
All this
So I could crawl up your steps
Dig my fingernails into the orange-peel-ing paint of your banisters
Former golden gates
Form forgiveness in the palm of your kiss
Peel poems from your scapula

It’s where I read the story
You scribbled on the face
Of a boy named Beloved

He grew up dragging through a machete field
In Zimbabwe,
Stumbled up to a landmine,
Believed it a radio,
And tucked it into his mouth.
Beloved… he’d met God at the river many nights and
Wrestled him for a chance to feel harmony inside.
Knew he couldn’t miss this, teeth clench and all

Carrying war on his tongue, he
Returned to his village
And while trying to share the blessing
With those he loved
Felt his prayer ripped from his lips

There are those of us
We know the painful explosion of opening our mouths
How violent it feels when we breathe
Deep breathes
We mangle angels when we speak
Because our heart beat keeps beating it’s way out of up and out of our throats
In the form of butterflies bearing boxing gloves
Beating their wing covered fists
Against our ripples. Bruised hurricane.

My stomach, a sack full of vibrating jellyfish
The tremble, the sting, they’re electric pens
Writing out the reasons why
Creativity is the closest we will ever get to God
In this life
While it’s the promise of the next one
That keeps my hands working
Keeps my throat sturdy
Keeps me spilling my veins
Onto the page
Even though it gets messy

Keeps me waking up dead
Weight
Almost can’t remember my name
Almost forget the way your voice tastes
Like honey

So
From this day forward
I refuse to beat you just because I feel ugly
My words rattle because they groan holy
Don't remember the last time I felt that way
But remember the last I felt you

It was when I watched a man
Stand on a stage
Pull the shoestring from his very own shoe
And use it to hang a guitar from around’ his neck
Said he’d use the strings from his own heart
If it were all he had left
Cause he knew he was made to play

He then turned into the room
And unhinged a melody that
Sucker punched me in the very last spot I felt surrender
My hands clenched so tightly
My knuckles became white flight
And I realized
That in order to make enough room for my religion
I had changed the shape of my prayers

What once were gigantic saber-toothed tigers
Became mere house cats
Blind mice at best
Remembering they were wildebeests
In the jungle beneath my bed

I used to believe in God
The way I believe my mother’s cooking.

Now, I still believe in God, but some day’s
His eyes look like run on sentences and my mouth isn’t strong enough
To read out loud, for that long.

Hold me to your word. See where we don’t quite line up.
My silence is not a protest
It’s just me trying to figure out this thing called trust

See
Father
I find it hard to trust you
A man of your WORD
Hard to trust you with ALL of my heart
When EVERY man in my life
Up until now
Has found small reasons
Big enough
To slip out the back door
Just when I got comfortable enough
To stop assuming they would.

I think it may be me

But I’ve been trying to beat the snow
Drop the rain, make it home.

Wondering why my prayer buckets keep coming up empty
When I dip them into your wells
And why the only harmony I find
Seems to blow up in my face

But on those days
I think of Beloved
Lost most of his face
For the taste of a dream
Yet not one day’s gone by
Where he regrets letting that landmine
Crawl between his teeth
Cause he says
If that bomb hadn’t
Of blown his mouth off it’s hinges
Then the bass drum in his chest surely would have
And that every explosion
Is an answered prayer.
You’ve just got to choose to feel it that way.

[excerpt]

Father
I find it hard to trust you
A man of your WORD,
Hard to trust you with ALL of my heart
When EVERY man in my life
Up until now
Has found small reasons
Big enough
To slip out the back door
Just when I got comfortable enough
To stop assuming they would.

I think it may be me.

How Lovers Leave Their Mark

There were initials
Carved into the wooden flesh of the bridge
Stretched out like the spine of a story book
Held creaking over the waterfalls

Every letter was separated by periods and plus signs, littered with romantic art work
Each was the first in a sentence that told of
Broken hearts, first kisses, surprise puppet shows, and hide-and-go-seek me if you love me Check yes if you do. Don’t call if you don’t
And never say maybe cause my love is worth more of an opinion than that.

The cool breeze shivered me stupid
As it crawled out of the east and crashed
Into my skin with the secret fury
Of amateur lovers, hiding dynamite between
Their chest and the wedding rings tucked into their shirt pocket.
Thinking it would be safe there when in fact
Nothing ever was
But we slept better thinking it would be

That summer I got lost in the eyes of a girl
Dropped bread crumbs along her secret paths
Went running through her gardens
And at some point the sparrows came hungry.

I was a boy.
Never thought about being a man.
I knew that one day I would have to
And the day I realized that
I left my childhood behind.

I never got back.

priorities.

It’s easy to make God a priority when you’re paid to do so.

I did.

For 5-ish years.

That’s not to say that it wasn’t genuine.

From start to finish of my time working with the youth at Mountain View, my eyes were set on God. Not to say they didn’t waiver from time to time, but no one is perfect.

However, when youre paid to teach kids about God it’s easy to slip into a groove without even realizing. And there’s nothing wrong with the groove unless of course something brings you out of it.

Like for me. 3 months ago I stepped down from my position there to pursue some other avenues.

Here I am 3 months later and I am relearning my faith. What I mean is that God was the number one priority in a rhythm that I flowed in for 5 years. But not working at a church any longer, I am having to find a new rhythm. In having to do so, everything has been mixed around. All of my priorities are jumbled.

For the past couple weeks it has been all I can do, and a lot of what I can’t do, to hold onto my faith as I navigate a new rhythm of life.

Many of my friends have been great. Letting me know they are there for me, and giving me the kind of space that a kid who likes to learn the hard way often needs.

One or two people have wanted to do the “Christian thing” and remind me of different scriptures and spiritual proverbs in hopes of establishing a sort of spiritual lightning rod to their, or what they would refer to as our, cause. This, by the way, is a horrible thing to do with someone who is doubting the presence of something because the do not want to be reminded of that “something’s” words of wisdom. I don’t want to be told I don’t have to hurt or feel guilty because Paul says so. Sometimes we just want to feel what we feel. Its part of the process. “Stop crowding my guilt. I worked hard to feel this way and I want to enjoy it for a minute, damnit!”

But that’s okay. I forgive you. You’re forgiven. That’s the beauty of following Jesus…

With that all said. Tonight Buzzy spoke on priorities. He said that when Jesus was asked (and that was key that Jesus was asked. He did not just demand this of people) he said the greatest commandments, aka. priorities, were to love God and love people. They were goals, tasks, or a resolution. They were priorities. They were the constants even when the rhythm changes.

And something made sense. Of course my priorities would shift stepping out of what I have known and into something new. Investing in Jr. High kids, preparing Sunday messages, being on time to staff meetings… none of these are number 1 priorities for me any longer. Now I have new priorities. But I was reminded tonight that the constants are 1. God and 2. People. Period. I'm no longer paid to prioritize God by default so now, I have to make, not more effort but, new effort in order to so.

Regardless of the state of life; regardless of the trials, temptations, or learning experiences that may come, those are the top 2 priorities. They are obvious and yet, as I am learning, oh so easy to lose in the shuffle from one rhythm to another. So, keep your eyes on your priorities and make sure you know what your priorities are…

In the process of finding new rhythm under the umbrella of constant priorities,
Nick

Short Poems

Dear Sir:

I love you

I love you like I love Cheez-Wiz

I really don’t love Cheez-Wiz that much

Sure as hell not enough to write a poem about it

So I guess I don’t really love you all that much.

Fear of Consequences:

My step dad is the only person I know

Who worries that eating food might make him have to poop

Seriously.

Uninvited Guests

Stop crowding my guilt.

I worked hard to feel this way and I’m going to enjoy it.

Alone.

Last of The Believers

We were the first out of bed in the morning, we were the last of the believers.

We were drunk on hot cocoa,

Present hunting, seasonal dreamers.

We were held up Gospel hymns in our midnight Sunday dress

The cold weather punched us dry in the mouth

Split our lips like fire wood as we burned that candle down

To bass lines played by little drummer boys behind the railroads of our ribs.

Our lungs slowed like toy trains running low of battery as we

Fell asleep in our beds and visions of sugarplums danced in our heads

Because we did not yet dream of being whole.

We would watch the snowflakes drop like good graces from heaven and wondered if God ever got cold.

Wondered if mistletoe really worked.

Wondered at what age we might get to find out that it really does.

Carols would swim through the air, those musical fish,

I wrapped my wrists in tinsel because I knew the life

Flowing underneath was a gift.

Knew that my eyes were more sacred than the things they lusted after

After the storm came, there were snowdrifts everywhere

Slopes so big I pretended they were polar bears

And pricked my fingertip with the needlepoint of my imagination.

My blood dripped Coca-Cola red down onto the icy white fur

And for the first time, I learned how terrible it felt to ruin something perfect.

Lately, I’ve been carrying all my questions in a manger.

Wondering how the wise men got a north star that led them to a savior

While the only signs I see anymore are the ones that keep telling me to “STOP”

But I wasn’t able to stop the cold, so my innocence became a frozen pond

I broke the blades off my skates and hid them in my voice box

So all the words I speak will come off sounding sharp

Yet, I still seem to be returning to places in my life where the

Ice has already proved too thin

I’ve ended up in shock more times than I will ever admit

And I never quite learned how to unwrap a gift

So I just end up tearing beautiful things to pieces

I’m having a hard time telling the difference

Between a blessing and a curse

So this Christmas, I’m asking my angels for a better radar

So I can learn what it feels like to fuck up in reverse

I want to get it right

I want to feel like a tree that has never known a crooked star

Want to come to you carrying warm light bulbs in my arms and a crackling fire in my heart

Want to be able to hold all my guns without hearing

You say, “Be careful, you’ll shoot ya eye out, kid.”

This Christmas I want to see snow angels in my Mother’s eyes

And hear conviction in a voice that belongs to any of my Fathers

I want to feel like I’m becoming a good son alongside other good sons and daughters

It’s just that, I keep on forgetting how it was this all started

But I’ve been picking up signals in my broken receivers

Angels trying to remind me that

We were the first out of bed in the morning,

We were the last of the…

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This will serve as my primary means to shares my poetry, stories, and a few other odds and ends. I appreciate your support, subscription, feedback and spreading the word as I am looking to take my writing to a wider audience in the upcoming year and beyond.

big love.
nick.